Welcome to Dragonbard.com

I can’t believe it’s already halfway through December… but at least it’s a little warmer this week.

We did get a light dusting of snow yesterday, which almost made all of the cold days worth it. CareBear still dresses like it’s summer but she ran right out into the backyard to celebrate the first snow flakes of the season anyway.  LiliBee wasn’t far behind, but luckily she still lets me dress her in warmer clothes.

We visited with Santa on Wednesday and both kids were cooperative and happy! It was amazing. I’m not sure how we managed it, but even Santa was impressed.

We went out to get our Christmas tree on Saturday afternoon. The kids thought it was a lot of fun (once we talked CareBear into wearing a coat) and loved picking out the tree. It was too cold for all of us after a while, though, so the girls and I abandoned Chris for the warmth of the office. He did a great job of cutting the tree down and getting it on the car all by himself, though!

Decorating the tree was a big hit. The bottom 2/3 of our tree is very kid friendly and there’s nothing that they can mess up so they’ve been having a lot of fun all weekend redecorating and redistributing ornaments. LiliBee loves the jingle bells, which I find to be very helpful in figuring out what she’s up to when I’m out of the room.

I did my mom duty at school this week, though being the “outdoor mom” when it’s 12 degrees is not all that it’s cracked up to be! CareBear decided that she should wait in the classroom where it was warm rather than helping me with the set up and take down. Still, I had a lot of fun making green play dough snowmen with the kids once class started. I also spent an interesting afternoon wrapping gifts at Borders… people were very friendly and generous for the most part!

This week is another busy one! I should be finishing up Christmas shopping (and awaiting delivery of my online purchases, which is always fun). CareBear has her last week of school for the year. We’ll be celebrating my birthday and gearing up for big holiday fun next week. And I need to get all of the critters in for the checkups!

I hope everyone is staying warm and well!

I hope everyone is staying warm! It’s pretty chilly out there, but no snow around here yet… I’m hopeful that we’ll see at least a few flakes before it warms up and rains again.

We had a lot of indoor fun this week, including scattering all of our cushions and pillows around the living room for jumping and climbing fun, but the real excitement happened in the yard. Chris spent the (very cold) weekend putting our Christmas lights out on the house and trees (love you honey!). They’re very pretty and the girls are thrilled. We’ve taken (very cold) walks around the neighborhood every night to look at all of the houses’ decorations.

We’re hoping to get our tree sometime this week. CareBear is so excited about all of it this year, which is fun to watch. LiliBee goes along with whatever CareBear is doing, of course, but is pretty pleased with herself when she notices decorations on her own. LiliBee is very much a twinkly lights girl, they fascinate her.

This week includes lots of school related fun. CareBear’s class is learning about sharing this month and she’s having a great time practicing at home… much to LiliBee’s delight. I’m “working” in class again this week and this weekend we’ll be fundraising. I’m gift wrapping at the South Hill Borders from 12:30 to 3:30 on Saturday if anyone wants to stop by and say hi.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Ours was quite nice and very mellow… or maybe that was just the effects of turkey and pumpkin pie!

We spent the day at my folks eating good food and playing with fun toys. I think LiliBee snacked for 6 hours straight, she’s quite a grazer. CareBear is a bit pickier about what she eats, but she had quite a variety of fruit to enjoy. We’ve been pretty busy lately, so it was nice to have a day “off”.

We had another ultrasound to see Banjo last week. Apparently, that’s going to be a monthly event now that I’m both old and showing signs of gestational diabetes. It’s always fun to see the little hands and feet waving around! They got the pictures they needed of the heart and face and everything looks good. Banjo is measuring right on target for 22 weeks and still has everything in all the right places.

There was more remodeling over the weekend. Chris’ folks came up Friday and Saturday to help with molding and baseboards… it’s all so pretty! Parts of our house look like a real home again. The puppies and kitties are sure happy that things are getting back to normal.

The day after Thanksgiving, I came down with a cold… Chris had it a couple of weeks ago, but it took it’s time passing on to me. On the bright side, at least it waited until after LiliBee’s birthday party and the holiday! Also, at least it’s not the flu… On the other hand, the kids don’t let me rest enough as it is! Still, I seem to be much better today, which is good since I’m supposed to go to school with CareBear tomorrow.

This week should be fun, assuming I’m on the mend. We don’t have any doctor’s appointments (which is getting to be more rare now that I’m all “high risk”) and I get to be “art mom” at school, which is the most fun parent helper in my opinion. We’ll be visiting the farm as usual and might even do a little Christmas shopping. The girls love all of the twinkly decorations around right now.  And I don’t think we have anything actually scheduled for this weekend yet! That, in itself, is amazing.

Is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? Christmas? New Years? Where did this year go, anyway?

We had a fun birthday week… LiliBee turned two years old! Of course, if you ask her she’ll tell you that she’s three. I can’t convince her that she’s actually two and now she has CareBear on her side. Anyway, she got to have a special birthday dinner of spaghetti and both she and CareBear helped me make the birthday cake.

We had a nice little birthday party for her over the weekend (even smaller than planned since Cousin H had to stay home with the flu, poor kid). LiliBee wasn’t too sure about blowing out the birthday candles, but she’s apparently some kind of present prodigy since she tore right into them with almost no prompting! She loves all of her gifts and the party balloons, but mostly she was impressed by everyone coming to her house all at once.

In other news, LiliBee had her 2 year check up! She’s still tiny for her age, but perfectly healthy. Both kids got flu shots at that appointment and CareBear is still complaining about how annoyed she was by “LiliBee’s doctor” giving her a shot.

After all of the party fun, Chris and his folks continued our renovation project by painting the living room and getting molding up around our doors! The project is almost finished and the house is looking really nice… and I can’t help but think that being pregnant is an excellent way to be allowed to just stay out of the way!

This week should be pretty fun. We have our follow-up ultrasound on Banjo (and I promise to actually get some pictures out from this one!) and lots of Thanksgiving fun with my folks. This weekend will be more work on the house and, hopefully, a little bit of downtime to enjoy the new stuff before gearing up for December.

It’s a blustery day today, but I kind of like it! Of course, we’re cozy inside with no where to go (for a change) so it might not be so fun for those of you out and about.

We had an exciting week… we made the big move back down into the rest of the house! It’s pretty nice, but there’s still a bunch of stuff to do before everything is back in it’s usual place. Unfortunately, that might have to wait a bit while take some time off to enjoy LiliBee’s birthday and Thanksgiving. We’ve actually been spending most of our “free” time running all of the errands that were put off during the floor work.

I was “snack mom” at preschool last week. CareBear and I made pumpkin oatmeal bars for her class and the kids really loved them. Chris had an extra day off due to the holiday so he was able to tag along and see what preschool is all about, too! CareBear was excited to have him there while she was the special helper (the kids who bring the snacks get to have extra responsibilities) and had a great day.

We did a little window shopping yesterday (and birthday shopping… shhhhh) and ran into Santa Claus! It seems a little early to me but CareBear was fascinated. She went up to say hi and got to chat with him for a few minutes. He told her to be sure to pick up her toys and brush her teeth, which she talked about for the rest of the day. LiliBee decided to be shy.

Our big news this week, of course, is LiliBee’s birthday! She’s going to be two years old tomorrow… I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that she was a tiny baby. She’s still pretty tiny, of course, but she’s a little girl now. She does so much by herself these days and gets really annoyed if we try to help. We’ve even had a couple of the famous “terrible two” tantrums! That’s kind of new for us since CareBear is more drama queen than tantrum thrower. Still, it’s amazing to watch them grow up and gain their individuality.

Other than birthday fun, we don’t have too much out of the ordinary planned for this week. LiliBee will be going to the doctor for her check up and shots, which I’m sure will go over well. And have to figure out what cake to make for the birthday girl… CareBear is pulling for chocolate, of course, but I think I might try something else.

Well, we’re almost through week three of remodeling! We’re still living in one room, but the floors are done and furniture is starting to move back into the regular places downstairs! We had some challenges over the last week with getting the floor finished. There were still a couple of rooms left to do after Chris and his dad were out of vacation time so we hired it out in hopes of getting it finished in time for LiliBee’s birthday (remodeling tip: calling yourself a “professional” doesn’t necessarily make it so… stay away from Kings Flooring!), but after hours and hours of repair by Chris and his folks the floor looks fabulous! The girls love it and the critters are happy to be able to check out the rest of the house again. With any luck, we’ll be mostly moved back in by this weekend! Though then we’ll be moving on to painting and getting trim back up. It will be a luxury to be able to use the kitchen and get more than 5 feet away from the kids…

We had a pretty boring week for the most part, just the usual stuff. CareBear went to school, we visited the farm, we ran errands in the rain. Our big fun was going to Z’s third birthday party! Cake, balloons and presents are always lots of fun. The birthday girl got a big kick out of blowing out the candles and doing some quality control on the cake frosting. It’s fun to see all of the kids growing up and changing so much year to year.

I promised to share the ultrasound pictures of Banjo this week, but my scanner won’t talk to my computer. I’ll have to get my computer guy right on that… or I might wait until he’s not so overwhelmed with finishing the rest of the house!

This week will hopefully bring things back to normal. Chris is back to work after his unanticipated vacation time and I get to go to preschool on Thursday to play with the kids… I mean “work”. And we’ll be planning for LiliBee’s birthday! I can’t believe she’s going to be two years old next week…

We headed off to Spooner’s Farms in the valley last week with CareBear’s preschool class. It rained something awful the day before, but we lucked out with a sunny (if somewhat muddy) day!

Tractor ride to the pumpkin patch!

CareBear got a little splinter from the stem of her pumpkin.

LiliBee is very proud of her pick.

Ride ’em, LiliBee!

Into the patch!

Pumpkin heads.

We meet a big spider…

And play in the rope maze…

And do a bit of sliding.

A good and muddy time.

We’ve had a busy and productive week around here…

In remodel news, the new floor is done in two of the bedrooms and part of the hallway. The guys have spent the past several days scraping up linoleum and working on the living room floor. We decided to raise it up instead of leaving it sunk-in and that led to all kinds of extra work on beams and ducts under the house. We made a few unexpected discoveries but the decking is being put back on today so we can move on! My kitchen is practically unusable and all of our doorways are covered with plastic, but at least the end is in sight.

In fun news, CareBear had her first field trip! Her preschool class took a trip to Spooner’s farm and LiliBee and I were able to tag along. We learned how pumpkins and corn grow and what bees and bats do to help. We took a ride on a tractor around the corn maze and to the little pumpkin patch that they set aside for school kids. We visited with goats, chickens, turkey and rabbits and climbed on straw bales. After a quick snack, we headed out into the main pumpkin patch to run around, which was really muddy! The girls checked out the spiders and mud puddles and the rope maze before we headed home with our little pumpkins and mud up to our knees. The weather was actually pretty nice and all of the kids had a great time.

It was, of course, Halloween on Saturday. We decorated our pumpkins with stickers handily donated by one of my former co-workers. CareBear made a great face on hers while LiliBee went for a more abstract use of almost all of the eyeball stickers. CareBear could hardly wait for trick or treating this year. She started asking to put on her costume around noon. LiliBee was unsure of what the big fuss was, but she’s always willing to go along with her big sister’s enthusiasm. CareBear debated for a few weeks before deciding on a costume this year… and ended up with the same dragon costume as last year! It’s a little shorter on her, of course, but she was thrilled with it. LiliBee dressed up as Darth Vader and impressed everyone with her jedi mind tricks. They made a pretty good candy run going to the few houses around us and over at my folks’ house. CareBear loved helping Pas hand out candy to their numerous trick or treaters while LiliBee used my camera to take pictures of each of her pieces of candy, for some reason.

LiliBee and I went to a fun little candle party Saturday morning. She charmed everyone and even found a little boyfriend who couldn’t stop hugging her! Meanwhile, Chris took CareBear to gymnastics class… he tells me that the holiday sugar high created extra chaos in the class but at least everyone had fun.

In Banjo news, we went to our first big ultrasound last week. Since I’m considered “advanced maternal age”, we automatically do the level 2 ultrasound at the perinatology office. Banjo has all of the usual body parts in all of the usual places! We’ll be going back in a few weeks so that they can get a really good look at the heart and face (Banjo stopped cooperating toward the end), but everything looks good so far. And, before you all start wondering, we’re still going to be surprised about the gender. We did get a few ultrasound pictures but I haven’t had a chance to scan them so I won’t be able to share until next week.

Onward to November…

Greetings from remodel central. We’ve made the move upstairs, the bedrooms are empty of furniture, the living room is full of furniture, new doors and molding are ordered, some of the ceilings are no longer popcorned, the carpet is gone from most areas, some of the walls are painted fresh new colors and there’s pretty bamboo flooring in the master bedroom. It’s been a big week!

The remodeling is going pretty well. There have been minor skirmishes, but nothing too serious. All of us sleeping in one room has actually gone much better than I anticipated, though keeping the kids occupied while they’re awake is more of a challenge with most of the toys, activities and supplies packed away. The girls have enjoyed having Chris’ folks around, though! It’s always fun to have a new audience…

The animals are adjusting to the change in routine. Mostly, the cats hide and the dogs try to check everything out by getting in the way.

We had some fun, too, though. We got the house (the outside, anyway) decorated for Halloween! I haven’t taken any good pictures, yet, but I will. CareBear loved all of the spookiness and decorations, but LiliBee wasn’t too sure. She seems to be more of a “pretty twinkly lights” girl so far.

CareBear had a big sleepover with cousin H, which I hear was lots of fun and involved pony movies and baking cookies. LiliBee and I took advantage of the one-on-one time to visit my folks and get her some undivided attention.

Quick Fundraising n=Note: If you know anyone who’s planning on going to the “Magical Night of Giving” at the Supermall next month, we’re selling tickets to it for $5 each. I hear it’s fun and the savings are pretty good, but I’ve never been to it myself. More info about the event can be found here.

This week we get to go on our first, official school field trip! We’re heading to Spooner’s pumpkin patch with CareBear’s class to ride the Pumpkin Express (whatever that is) and visit the corn maze. Lilia and I get to tag along and the weather isn’t supposed to be too bad, so it should be a fun outing. And, of course, this weekend is Halloween! Too bad I don’t have a costume that fits this year… maybe I’ll figure something out.

Well, it’s official… Fall has arrived. We’ve had lots of rain and wind and mud and puddles this week. It’s also getting a little chilly, which means now I have to keep track of coats when we’re out and about!

We’ve had a productive, if a little boring, week. We’re almost ready to move into the bonus room and get started on the new floors. We still need to finalize some of the paint colors and get the new doors. And I need to finish up with the kids’ clothes and figure out where to put everything while the rooms are “empty”. But we’re getting there.

LiliBee had her staples removed on Friday! She was a very brave and cooperative patient. The doctor says that her head is healing well and that there shouldn’t be any problems with it. So far, she hasn’t managed to injure herself too badly this week, which makes for a nice change of pace.

CareBear started gymnastics class again. She’s pretty good at the balance beam and the jumps, but her favorite is always the obstacle course. That kid loves to run around and climb over things.

We attended our first, official preschool birthday party (of the non-family variety, anyway) this weekend. CareBear was invited to one of her classmates’ pizza party. It was very exciting and just a little chaotic, but Carys had a great time picking out a present for the birthday girl and playing with all of her friends from school. LiliBee was too little to play on the outdoor “playground” but she really enjoyed her pizza and salad and cake.

This week will be interesting. There’s remodeling and a sleepover and I’m “working” at school. I get tired just thinking about it!